Overview
- Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service told TASS that President Emmanuel Macron ordered preparations to deploy up to 2,000 French soldiers and officers to Ukraine.
- The SVR said the contingent’s core would be French Foreign Legion assault units already training in Poland and slated for redeployment to central Ukraine.
- The agency also claimed France is expanding medical capacity for casualties by creating hundreds of hospital beds and training doctors for field work.
- Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova mocked the report, urging Macron to assign troops to protect museums, referencing a high-profile Louvre theft.
- A Russian Federation Council member warned any foreign units in Ukraine would be priority targets and said Paris would bear responsibility for casualties, while a US commentator told TASS such a deployment would be political suicide for Macron; no independent confirmation of the SVR claims has been presented in the cited coverage.